Getting friends to MC your reception is a huge ask. I never thought about this until we got
rejected by S's High School friend and felt a huge shock about it. I mean, we've been to other weddings of our friends where he had been emceeing for and he had been absolutely fabulous! I asked him coyly once if he would do it for us when S and I do get married and he (albeit drunkenly) did cross his heart and swear that he would!
Anyways, the search for a new MC really became a challenge as I know people have famously put the fear of public speaking right up there with the fear of dying. I did think that S being a lawyer and having been in the Debate team in school would have several contacts suitable for the task, but we got rejected two more times in the process.
Then we approached two friends from our really close knit group, heart filled with anticipation of rejection and they surprisingly said yes! We never told them that they weren't our first pick. I mean we hadn't thought of them as someone who would be keen to speak publicly before, but they made asking them so easy that we were really thankful for it and didn't make any more demands from them.
On the day itself though, R and C really came through for us. The first guy who rejected us was in the audience as our guest and I think he hung his head in shame as R & C showed him down and did a really personalised performance that outshone anything he could ever have done in his MCing career.
So I know I
alluded to their performance before, but after getting yet some more rave reviews from some other guests yesterday, I really wanted to explicitly note down how awesome my friends were in what they did for us.
R & C introduced us by telling everyone why we had chosen a NYC theme (and both sportingly braved hat hair by putting on Yankees caps), being that S had proposed to me there.
They then went on to explain that the first song we were dancing to was from Jersey Boys, the play we watched in NYC on the very same trip. And then whilst introducing the bridal party, they did little spiels about the bridal party because we were all friends and so they had some really lovely things to say about each bridal party 'couple'.
Whilst there was a lull in the reception as I was getting changed, R & C came out into the crowd in I Heart NY T-Shirts and backpacks. They then went to each table which were named after boroughs and places in NYC pretending to be lost tourists and interacting with our guests, asking for directions to Central Park which was the name of our Bridal table! When they finally 'found' Central Park, R cracked a joke about how C got caught up in Broadway because of all the pretty girls that were there which was an inside joke because C's girlfriend was sitting on that table.
Then, as we were performing our first dance, they quietly slipped away for a third costume change of the night and came back in Broadway splendour!
I loved how much effort they had put into the whole night. They also shared little insights into S and I with the guests as R & C has known us throughout the last 9 years and did have many funny stories to tell.
To top it all off, after all that when they were finally let off their duties and could finally enjoy the reception like every other guest, they cajolled our photographer to take pictures of them in each of their costumes at our Crazybooth so that we could have them as a keepsake for our happy memoirs from the wedding.
Better friends I could not have asked for and I know we were truly blessed and undeserving because of how much fuss I kicked up after the first guy rejected us. I know, I owe R & C a lot and we hope that one day we will be able to pay them back for their great efforts.
